


drive so fast and we'll leave it all behind you

by midnightwhisperings



Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: Episode Tag, Episode: s05e05 Jack + Kinematics + Safe Cracker + MgKNO3 + GTO, F/M, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Marijuana, Recreational Drug Use, Road Trips, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-18
Updated: 2021-01-18
Packaged: 2021-03-16 06:02:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28826394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/midnightwhisperings/pseuds/midnightwhisperings
Summary: riley and mac decide to take a little impromptu road trip to help them decompress after jack’s death. hijinks ensue.
Relationships: Riley Davis/Angus MacGyver (MacGyver TV 2016)
Comments: 14
Kudos: 74





	drive so fast and we'll leave it all behind you

**Author's Note:**

> hi!!! this is my first work for the macgyver fandom. if you like this one, keep on the lookout for more fics from me and please don't hesitate to leave feedback! :-) title is from the song 'drive' by carly rae jepsen, feel free to have a listen! hope you enjoy!

jack’s gto roars down the 405, which is blessedly mostly devoid of traffic, for once. if riley were more superstitious, she’d be convinced that jack pulled some strings up in heaven and parted the way down the freeway for her like moses parted the red sea. the way riley is driving his car now is the way she’d always wanted to drive it, the way it was meant to be driven - with the pedal to the metal, the wind whipping through her hair, and the engine purring below her seat - the same way jack used to drive it with her, cackling and hooting wildly with all caution thrown to the wind, despite her mother’s warnings. she just hated the fact that it took jack’s death for her to finally get an opportunity to do so. fate was often cruel like that, and she’d learned that the hard way. she shakes her head to herself. if only he hadn’t been so damn stubborn. she tries not to choke up thinking about it. she’s done enough crying to last her a lifetime, and she’d much rather not have mac see her like this again. she didn’t want to put a damper on the mood. so she chews on the inside of her cheek, tries to swallow around the lump in her throat, and pushes down further on the gas, weaving around an rv in front of her. 

“so, where exactly are we headed?” mac shouts to riley from the passenger seat, trying to be heard over the johnny cash song blasting on the radio. they’d made a quick stop back at mac’s place to pick up some of their belongings, having packed lightly while still enough for a weekend trip, but their current destination is unknown even to riley. 

she uses her right hand to turn the volume down a little, before returning it to the center console. she hadn’t originally thought of that - all she knew was that she couldn’t stand to be back at home wallowing in her own misery, even if mac was close by. she didn’t like the thought of him wallowing in his own misery, either. maybe their little joyride doesn’t have to end, at least not anytime soon. maybe this could be good for them - whatever _this_ was. but they ought to think up at least _some_ kind of destination. she figures they’ll cross that bridge when they get to it.

“anywhere that isn’t home,” she says. mac doesn’t seem to mind, he just nods agreeably. he must know he needs this, too, or could at least use it. 

riley was never the biggest fan of road trips. one to three hours was her limit, as trips that short didn't really require goading her mother to stop once the guilt that mounted every time she passed a place that must've had a bathroom reached its tipping point, nor did they require frequent stops for food or just _rest_.

now, let's say she's gone at least two times past her limit. but with the blue-eyed beauty laughing beside her in the passenger seat and the wind billowing through their hair like this is the most alive they'll ever be, she doesn't think she minds all that much.

even when she drives through literally hundreds of miles of Scenic Nowhereville and No Gas Stations Or Rest Stops Or Bathrooms For Milestown. even when her butt and right leg start to hurt from holding it on the gas pedal for so long. even when she really, _really_ has to pee, and mac asks her why she didn't go while they were actually driving through actual civilization, then jokes about her peeing out in the wilderness, to which she vehemently refuses much to his amusement. 

at the end of the day, she'll always enjoy his company, just as much as she enjoys him.

they cruise down the pacific coast highway as the sun dips low beneath the horizon, laughing and singing along badly to rascal flatts’ ‘life is a highway’, because _of course_ jack had this song on one of his tapes. mac’s got sunshine in his hair and the sky in his eyes, and riley didn’t think it was possible for her to fall even deeper in love with him than she already was before she looked over at him. it’s the happiest she’s seen him since the day they lost jack, and she’d do anything to keep the light in his eyes from ever dying out, even if it meant lending him what was left of her own flame. 

the sun has set by the time they make an eastward course towards the desert, and their fuel and phone batteries are running low. mac uses his phone to find them a seedy, empty gas station nearby. riley pulls in alongside the pump and gets out of the car to get them snacks while mac pumps the gas. she comes back with two family-sized bags of chips, two corn dogs, two bottles of coke, and a devilish grin on her face. the clerk there was weird and old and the corn dogs were probably a bad idea due to their origin, but you can’t fault her for getting excited that they found a place that served somewhat warm food in the middle of buttfuck nowhere. and her stomach was _rumbling_. screamsinging country music until your voice was nearly gone will do that to you. somehow.

after pausing to eat, their next order of business is finding a place to hole into for the night, but the only place around for miles is the ‘pleasant inn motel’. 

“isn’t that a bit contradictory?” mac wonders. riley chuckles. “it’s like, is it an inn? or is it a motel? technically speaking, it can’t be both.”

“is it… pleasant, at least?” riley jokes.

his thumb flicks through the sparse amount of available photos he found on yelp, the dim light of his phone screen slightly illuminating the contours of his face. “well, i don’t think we’ve got any better options - the operative word being ‘any’, here. no pictures of anything else besides the exterior. and there’s only one review with 1 and a half stars. no comments, though.”

riley smiles. “guess we’ve found a winner, then.”

-

they pull up to a slightly run-down looking motel just off of a dirt path, a sign screaming at them in neon purple letters that they’ve arrived at the pleasant inn motel, as the red ‘no’ in ‘no vacancy’ flickers erratically. it all just seems to lend to the distorted reality of their unfamiliar surroundings, and the sheer lack of cars present in the parking lot betrays how vacant it is in actuality.

the lone clerk at the office is quite odd, to say the least. she has a very raspy voice, a voice befitting somebody’s chainsmoking aunt. she insists that mac and riley are together at every opportunity she’s given, and keeps nudging them towards getting the suite with the single queen bed because it’s cheaper. not that riley would’ve been uncomfortable to be sharing a bed with mac, she just figures she doesn’t want to put herself in the position of having to figure out if _he_ was okay with it or not. she’d rather make things easier for herself and keep her distance as much as possible; after all, she still has no idea what was going on between him and desi. they’ve been _especially_ mercurial lately, and their pda has been dwindling ever since jack’s death. riley’s noticed that mac had hardly wanted to let her in on how he was feeling, and bottled up his emotions rather uncharacteristically whenever she probed him. he’s never been so cagey with anyone else - he was normally an open book, and even if he wasn’t, you could still read him like one. but there had always been trust issues between them ever since she thought he really went rogue and joined codex. it seemed like their relationship was hanging by a quickly fraying thread, and jack’s death was the scissor hovering over it, poised to finally cut it once and for all.

so when mac and riley insisted on having separate beds and the clerk supposedly _gave_ them the key to the suite with separate beds, they quickly find out that she did _not_ actually give them the key to the suite with separate beds. but at this point, they’re too tired to argue. and it wouldn’t be the end of the world to sleep next to your best friend, right?

right?...

the first thing riley says as the two traipse into the room is, "i hope this place doesn't have bed bugs." mac can't help but chuckle in response. their suite is nothing extraordinary, what with its dinosaur tv, lazily spinning ceiling fan, faded yellow pinstripe wallpaper, moss green carpet, and a single queen bed with a dated floral duvet. despite it desperately needing to be renovated, it looked pretty clean from where they were standing, although a UV light might tell a different story. riley tries hard not to fixate on that fact, and if she were to voice it, she knows mac would probably try to make one out of whatever junk he can find here, and she would rather remain blissfully ignorant of the evils she can’t see with the naked eye. the hotel probably doesn’t see too many guests coming through these parts, so its budget was probably scarce enough to prevent extensive renovations. riley’s surprised they could still manage to keep the lights on, especially with the nightly rates being so cheap, _and_ with breakfast included.

it’s strangely more domestic now that she and mac are sharing this one space - them being roommates was different, since they didn’t share a bedroom or even a bathroom, let alone a _bed_ . and though they’d take on covers where they had to pretend they were together, they’d never have to act as such behind closed doors. of course, one of them will probably offer to sleep on the floor, and it’ll probably be mac who does it first. but riley will feel bad and not want him to sleep on that disgusting floor, and then mac won’t want to kick her out of a nice, warm, possibly bedbug-laden bed for _her_ to end up on that disgusting floor. and they’ll arrive at an impasse in which they agree to share the bed, because it can’t be that bad, right?

right?...

once they’re all settled in, riley is the first to grab her stuff and freshen up before hitting the hay, while mac sits on the bed and flips through the channels on the TV. her face as reflected in the nondescript bathroom mirror looks more pale and haggard than she’s used to herself looking like, and her hair is a windswept mess, but she doesn’t quite care enough to wash it and then be bothered about drying it - not like this place offered much by way of toiletries for her to do so anyway, besides a meager bar of soap sealed in a wrapper with ‘pleasant inn motel’ emblazoned on it and a small shitty hair dryer.

she hops in the shower and sets it to the hottest temperature it can go, just the way she likes it. she finally emerges from the bathroom after about half an hour to see mac watching none other than rick and morty. she shakes her head to herself, smiling fondly at how easily amused he is by such a corny show. judging by the dodginess of this motel, she probably used up all the hot water, but isn’t all that sorry about it. not like mac would be one to complain about that, anyway - he’s probably one of those people who preaches about how scaldingly hot showers are bad for your skin. but he doesn’t even make any sort of remark about how much time she spent in there, he just smiles politely at her once she makes her presence known, grabs his stuff, and takes his turn in the bathroom. when he finally comes out, the room is dark and riley is lying face-up in bed. he quietly joins her on the other side, as if trying not to wake her.

“good night,” he croons. “don’t let the bed bugs bite.”

riley rolls his eyes and nudges him before rolling over onto her side. “not funny.” he laughs and rolls over onto his side as well, and she cracks a smile. she just can’t help it.

a queen bed is about average in terms of mattress sizes. it’s sized well enough for a couple, more comfortable and allows more wiggle room for each person than a full bed. but it felt oppressively small between them, and they weren’t exactly hulking figures. sure, mac was taller than her, but who wasn’t? it wasn’t like he had any more meat on his bones than she probably did. so why does it feel like if she does so much as turn around, she’ll end up in his arms?

she wished she could get away with being that clumsy. so she just sticks to her side with a stiff back facing his own equally as stiff back, nearly teetering off the edge. both of their bodies are lying above the covers, but it’s not like they really _need_ them. the room is stiflingly warm despite the ceiling fan spinning overhead. even the weather outside is cooler than in here - probably a side effect of the lingering, sweltering heat from early on in the day with only a single pathetic fan to combat it. 

riley just lies awake for a few minutes, listening to the even rhythm of mac’s breathing and hoping that it’ll eventually lull her into a blissful, dreamless sleep. but sleep never comes for her, and she’s left to stare up at the shadow of the ceiling fan while her mind plays tricks on her and overcomes her nervous system with the tingle of phantom bedbugs. she can’t stop thinking about the last time she saw jack in person, wearing his army fatigues, being so scared for him but at the same time so sure that he’d come back for her. because he always had. she remembers him telling her how proud he was of the woman she’d become, and how it felt to hear him say he loved her. of course she always knew that he loved her - she felt it in everything he did, in every greasy pizza he shared with her at that skeeball place, in every time he came to her rescue. but it was another thing entirely to hear him _say_ it. it was a goodbye and she hadn’t even known it. her chest tightens as she starts to take in sharp, shallow breaths. she has no idea how she was expected to go on without him. she still had elwood, but it just wasn’t the same. they each had their own special place in her heart, and neither one could ever replace the other. jack, however, had a very sizeable chunk of her heart, and with his death, it felt like that piece was missing, a piece she fears she’ll never find again. she’ll have to go on for the rest of her life as an incomplete person, an incomplete soul. and worst of all, she doesn’t think she even has it in her to go on like that.

annoyed by the ever-racing thoughts and mounting anxiety keeping her awake, she quickly sits up, blindly rifles through her knapsack for her glass weed pipe, weed baggie, and grinder, exits the suite onto the balcony, and takes a seat on one of the lounge chairs as she sets her paraphernalia down on the adjoining end table. the cool desert air is betrayingly still, and the full moon shines like an ivory beacon upon the vast expanse of white sands. she finds the quiet solitude peaceful, and with the help of some good old bud, she hopes to take the edge off the lingering grief hovering over her mind like a dark storm cloud.

she grinds up her weed and packs it into the bowl. as she’s lighting up, she hears the screen door opening behind her. it startles her for a moment, as she wasn’t expecting mac to still be awake as well. he takes a seat beside her, slapping his hands on his thighs unceremoniously as he does so.

“can’t sleep?” he asks the open air while riley is in the middle of taking a deep hit. she coughs a little as she blows out a thick plume of smoke. around anyone else, she’d be embarrassed to be coughing like some amateur, but around mac, that didn’t matter. he probably didn’t even know that coughing supposedly makes you an amateur, and even if he did, he wouldn’t care, at least not enough to tease her about it. 

“yeah,” she answers, looking out wistfully at the stars. the last time she saw this many was on that camping trip with mac and bozer, and even then, they weren’t as bright out there as they are out here. that’s how she _knows_ they’ve found themselves in the middle of nowhere, as if every other sign that they were wasn’t already blatantly obvious.

“me too,” mac admits, following her gaze. if she asked, she knows he’d go on a full-on lecture about all the constellations out in the sky right now and their backstories. she’d quite honestly let him wax poetic about anything he chose to, be it constellations or a phone book, and would hang faithfully onto every word he said.

so she does, because she needs a bit of a distraction before the effects of the weed start setting in, and if she could get a lecture from anyone, she’d want to get it from mac. he always had this spirited way of conveying information that told the listener just how much he knew about the topic, and that he was happy to relay said information and spread his knowledge to others. if she’d gone to college, he’d probably be one of the only professors she’d stay awake for and take copious notes from, barring the fact that he’s obviously extremely easy on the eyes. however, that’s providing she’d be focused on the material rather than him. mac, of course, is happy to oblige her inquiry, seemingly delighted that someone finally _asked_ for his lecture for once and isn’t cutting him off because they’re _not_ in a life or death situation and they finally have all the time in the world for his long-winded, jargony explanation. 

“that star over there,” he points at one of the brighter stars just east of the moon, “is polaris, or the north star. it’s the brightest star in the ursa minor constellation, and it’s about 434 light years, or 133 parsecs, away from earth.”

he then prattles on about some of the messier objects present above the horizon, like the pleiades star cluster and the crab nebula, and riley listens with rapt attention, mystified by how small they and their problems seem in comparison to all these celestial bodies millions upon millions of miles away from them. “bet you wish we had morty this time around,” he taunts. “would’ve loved to show you a closer look.”

riley rolls her eyes goodnaturedly. “i still can’t believe you named your telescope morty, of all names.”

“and _i_ still can’t believe you have a problem with me naming my telescope after a character from one of my favorite shows,” he quips.

riley never had a problem with mac’s admittedly strange hobbies and interests - as long as he enjoyed them, she respected them and didn’t rag on them to get under his skin like _some_ people. “i don’t! i just think it’s funny how you picked morty instead of literally anything else! isn’t his character supposed to be a wimp?”

“sort of, but ‘rick’ just doesn’t have the same ring to it. anybody would recognize the name ‘morty’ as being from the show, like ‘oh, morty from rick and morty, right?’ but rick is too generic. they wouldn’t get the reference.”

“so you _want_ people to know that you’re an even bigger nerd than you make yourself out to be, is that it?” she jokes.

mac laughs. “i guess so. but you can’t tell me you don’t think ‘rick’ would be a weirder name.”

“alright, alright, i see your point,” she concedes, holding her hands up in surrender.

see? this is nice. she missed this friendly banter, their special brand of back and forth. they were the only ones who knew how to push each other’s buttons and which ones to press without going too far, because they knew each other’s boundaries and trusted each other not to cross them. and they never did. riley uses the comfortable lull of silence to light up again and take another hit, momentarily forgetting that mac was present and she didn’t know how he felt about weed. “sorry, i didn’t think to ask if it bothered you that i was smoking,” she says sheepishly after exhaling.

mac waves his hand dismissively, shaking his head. “don’t worry about it, it doesn’t bother me. i’m just surprised - i didn’t know you smoked. never smelled it at the house.”

“yeah, i stopped once i moved in. i mostly just did edibles or hit my pen. i guess i just assumed you wouldn’t like the smell,” she explains.

“that’s fair. but i’m flexible, we could’ve worked something out if you came to talk to me about it,” he insists. 

she shrugs. “i didn’t want to feel like you had to accommodate me in _your_ house when you were already doing me a favor. plus, i was fine with the smell-free alternatives.”

mac tilts his head to the side, fixing her with a stern smile. “riley, you know you’re not a burden, right? you’re my friend. and when my friends need something, _anything_ , you know i’ll always be happy to accommodate.”

the way he’s smiling at her, the way he’s looking at her so earnestly, makes her want to burst into tears. she doesn’t deserve him. she doesn’t deserve him. next to jack and her mother, he also takes up quite a large residence in her heart and if she ever lost him to _anything_ , she knows it’d all be over. she just wishes he’d be all hers in the same way that she’s all his, where he was meant to be from the moment he destroyed her handcuffs and set her free. 

awash with emotion as all the events of the past few days catch up to her, hot, stinging tears start making themselves known in her eyes. mac notices and reaches out to touch her cheek before she can look away from him. “hey,” he says in the softest voice she’s ever heard him use, “are you okay?” 

she sniffles rather loudly and unflatteringly and mumbles a watery, “no.” 

without further preamble, he gets up and takes her in his arms, warm and unyielding like a fortress, and the dam breaks. this embrace is what she’s been needing and dreading at the same time. she sobs into the crook of his neck like she’s never sobbed before, shoulders heaving as she takes in wheezing breaths. his hands rub comforting patterns up and down her back. he doesn’t shush her, he doesn’t tell her not to cry, he doesn’t even ask her what’s wrong (probably because he knows) - he just lets her have a good, honest, cathartic cry. and that’s all she’s ever asked for.

“i just miss him so much,” she gasps finally, slightly muffled against his clothes.

“i know,” he whispers, leaning his head protectively over hers as his thumbs work through the tension in her back. “i do, too.”

she finds some solace in the fact that they’re both going through the same loss and that she isn’t really as alone as she feels, but simultaneously wishes he didn’t _have_ to go through the same pain. she wouldn’t wish it on anyone. if she could, she’d take it all away and take on double the pain all by herself. mac would never let her, but she wouldn’t care. she wouldn’t need his permission. it wouldn’t be up to him.

she gets a couple remaining sobs out of her system, and mac eventually lets her go, looking deep into her red-rimmed eyes. with how close she is to him now, she can see the sadness clouding his own eyes. then he steps back, reaching into his pocket for something.

“riles,” he begins, “i want you to have this.” he drops something cold and metallic into her hands. she opens them to see what’s inside. _dalton, jack s. 337D80916A. o neg. christian._ jack’s dog tags. 

riley shakes her head in disbelief, furrowing her brows as she tries to give them back to him. “mac, i—i can’t accept this. you should have a piece of jack to remember him by, too. he already left me his car, remember?”

mac shakes his head back at her, placing them in her hand and closing her fingers around them. “no. i want _you_ to have it. i’m no good with keepsakes like this. nasha gave me a necklace and had me promise i was going to bring it back to her, and i never did. and you saw what happened to me with my dad’s watch.”

“mac—” she tries to give them back to him again, and he accepts them, but cuts her off anyway. 

“if it makes you feel better, i’ve already got his collection of bruce willis movies. but he would want you to have these. trust me, he knows i’m terrible with keepsakes,” he smiles wanly. “he held them close to his heart, just like you. now you’ll always have him close to yours,” he insists with equal parts firmness and gentleness, coming around her to lift the chain over her head and let it come to rest around her neck. the dog tags hang protectively right over where her heart is, just like he said.

with him giving this piece of jack to her, it wasn’t only jack that she’d have close to her heart. she’d have a piece of mac close to her heart, too. two of her best boys; the man she’d want to walk her down the aisle, and the man she could see herself walking down the aisle to. her eyes fill with tears all over again, and she doesn’t think she’s ever experienced such conflicting emotions, such happiness and such sadness, in her life. she’s overcome with joy and gratefulness that mac cared enough about her to surrender his last piece of jack to her, but at her core, she’s sad because she wanted him to keep this piece of jack close to _his_ heart. it had been given to him in the first place, after all. jack’s car was more than she could’ve even hoped for, and now he wanted to give her this, too? this man would surely be the end of her.

she clutches the tags tightly in her fist. “but you—you were just as much a part of his life as i was. they gave _you_ those dog tags for a reason.”

“i don’t need them, riley,” he says, pushing a wayward strand of her hair behind her ear and stroking away her tears with his thumb. “i have you.”

her breath hitches at the intimate contact. he’d never touched her like that before, never thought he ever _would_. she’s never even seen him act this gentle with desi. but she’s seen that look in his eyes before, seen it back when they told each other they’d never be alone after safely disposing of that bomb, back when he looked down at their intertwined hands and then back up at her. she wondered if she’d felt it then, felt just how much she cared for him and would do anything for him. looking at him now, she’s more confident than ever that he _has_ to feel it. and before she even knows what she’s doing, she leans up and kisses him with abandon, pulling him closer by the back of his neck. mac responds in kind, and it’s like everything around them falls away, insignificant. nothing in her life has ever seemed so blessedly _right_ before this very moment. her heart beats with a renewed purpose, feeling just a little bit more whole this time around. the pieces of their broken souls fit together perfectly like missing complementary puzzle pieces they each thought they’d never find, when they’d been right there alongside each other all this time, and it was like they’d finally come _home._ it’s got her thinking maybe, that after all the heartbreak and uncertainty… maybe this is where they were always meant to be. and she only has jack to thank for leading them there.

_thanks, old man._


End file.
